Reliving Childhood
by antoninya
Summary: Five places Sherlock and John ended up that they were too old for. A ball pit, a TARDIS, a cinema, a toy store, and laser tag.


Originally written for the Sherlock kink-meme on LJ.

* * *

**1. Ball Pit**

Thud.

Thud.

Thudthudthud.

There were red balls hitting the floor, bouncing slightly, and then rolling off. Slowly, John inched toward where they were coming from. He spied a net, and several more balls flew out of the opening in the net. This was not the usual sort of crime scenes Sherlock went to.

John looked around.

"Stop throwing things at my crime scene," Anderson said, exasperated. He scowled in the direction of the net and the balls.

In response, a half-dozen red balls came flying in his direction in immediate succession. John peered through the net. Well, at least he now knew where Sherlock was.

The consulting detective sat, cross-legged on the floor in the middle of a half-empty ball pit. Every time a ball rolled closer, he would pick it up and toss it toward the opening. John ducked out of the way.

"I will start throwing them back!"

"What are you doing?" John asked, ignoring Anderson like everyone else was doing.

Sherlock looked up at him, that typical Sherlock-y expression of 'you are all three steps behind me and why do I put up with it?' on his face.

"Look," he said, and pointed.

John ducked through the opening in the net surrounding the ball pit. It was made for someone substantially smaller than himself, but he managed. He hunched down on the ground by where Sherlock pointed, kicking a few of the red balls out of the way himself.

"Smell."

John gingerly leaned over the small puddle on the ground and took a whiff. It made his eyes water a bit, and remember holidays spent with Harry holding a glass of clear liquid, everyone pretending it was water.

"Boring," Sherlock muttered, tossing more balls out of the way.

In answer, several red balls came careening back, some of them hitting John's back, and one of them hitting Sherlock in the middle of the forehead. They both looked up to see Anderson looking at them, a supply of red balls nestled in his arms.

"Alcohol poisoning," Sherlock said. "Boring." He eyed Anderson warily. "What are you doing with those?"

* * *

**2. TARDIS**

Earl's Court wasn't where John expected to be at three in the morning, but there was a body. Where there was a body, there was Sherlock, and where there was Sherlock, there was John.

"I didn't even know they made these anymore." John poked his head around the side of the blue police box. It sat outside the door to the tube station. A few metres away, Lestrade stood with several of his officers, looking over the main crime scene. Sherlock had taken one look at it, asked where the man's companion was and then scurried off down the street.

"They don't." Sherlock said, opening the telephone door. He shut it. "This one was built in 1997."

This was the fourth site Sherlock had found blood in front of.

John pushed on the door, half-expecting it to be locked. It swung open. He peered inside. "Sherlock?"

"What?"

"I think I've just found the other body." On the ground, curled up like an infant, was a twenty-something young woman with blonde hair.

Sherlock appeared over his shoulder, and shoved him forward. John stumbled against the wall.

"Excellent," Sherlock said, smiling, pushing past him. John quickly backed up, and found himself outside of the police box. He shook his head. Watching Doctor Who was never going to be the same after this.

* * *

**3. Cinema**

"Why am I here?" Sherlock demanded, glaring at the crowd.

"Because I am," said Lestrade.

"It's boring."

John privately wondered how such a large gathering could be teemed 'boring.' He honestly felt it was terrifying: so many teenage girls, the occasional mother and boy. The crowd watched as the police surrounded the dead girl, clad in jeans and a TEAM JACOB t-shirt.

Several of the girls nearest to John were whispering and pointing in Sherlock's direction.

"Think of it as an anthropological study," suggested Donovan with a tight grin.

"Boring," Sherlock shot back.

John pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on. The crowd was unruly, and there was a certain feeling in the air. He recognized it: the tension before something big was about to happen. He had a feeling that a stampede caused by angry Twilight fans delayed from seeing the latest film due to a murder or accidental death would be very similar to the attacks he had witnessed in Afghanistan.

"I mean, just look at her neck. Strangulation! Not by someone over ... " Sherlock scanned the crowd, and his eyes settled on someone. "One metre, sixty centimetres."

A girl in a TEAM EDWARD shirt squeaked and tried to run.

* * *

**4. Toy Store**

John had the feeling that homicides increased around Christmas. Or maybe it just seemed like they did, given the amount of people everywhere. It certainly had the largest amount of people being killed in toy stores.

He had a feeling why as, for the fourth time in the last fifteen minutes, he walked in front of a display of motion-sensitive toys. They started to sing, and move, and John wished that he had something to make his headache go away.

Sherlock kept giving the toys a look like he very much wanted to take them all apart and not put them back together again.

* * *

**5. Laser Tag**

It had been Lestrade's idea. Or rather, Sherlock suspected, it had been Mycroft's idea, and that had been belayed down some complicated chain of governmental and police chain of command to end up as a suggestion to Lestrade.

"That's just ridiculous," John said when Sherlock explained this. They were ducked behind a large square, laser guns in their hands, while black light lit the arena, and glowing spots indicated various stations.

"Oh, he would," Sherlock said. He rose up, and peered over the block, laser gun raised.

"It's a bonding exercise," John said.

"A bonding exercise where they all try to take me out," Sherlock complained. There was the sound of someone being hit in the distance. One more down. That didn't leave many left in the game, by John's count.

John watched carefully in the opposite direction of Sherlock. He could see shadows moving, but they weren't close enough to hit properly. Someone dodged at the side of his vision, and he spun around.

The shot hit a short, blond man that John vaguely recognized.

"Ha!" Sherlock laughed, like it had been his own shot.

"That's still a bonding exercise," John pointed out, continuing the conversation.

"I don't like it," Sherlock said, folding his arms and leaning back against their shelter. Clearly, there was no one left in that direction. He gazed in the same direction that John was watching in.

"But you agreed to come."

"You thought it would be fun."

"I never said that," John started.

"There's someone over there," Sherlock said, standing up straight, and pointing.

"Get down!" John yelled, and tackled Sherlock as there came the sound of a laser hitting the cube they had been using as shelter. Sherlock oofed and hit the ground first. John fired off several shots, as fast as the laser gun could go. He definitely hit something.

The lights came up. Anderson and Donovan were standing there, looking annoyed.

"Is that it?" Sherlock asked, from the ground. "Did we win?" He wriggled, looking up over John's shoulder.

"I think that's what it means," John said.

"Excellent." Sherlock grinned. "Now the exercise is how they can band together in suffering under my superiority."

John shook his head.


End file.
